Was Vladimir Lenin a good person?
This is my History essay that I had written for my teacher not that long ago and after making a few improvements I wanted to share it out:
Lenin was a good person because of the way he controlled and ran the country. Many think Lenin was brutal and paranoid at the time of creating the NEP but that was specific to that era. He had a great way of directing people to do the right thing and didn’t mean any harm. By making the NEP he was persuaded to be the good person in this situation as if he didn’t do anything wrong which was later proved wrong at the time of War Communism. He was always thinking of his people, promoting new laws such as the NEP to improve the lives of the lower classes, which had never been done before, giving them better wages in farmland, factories, working conditions and lives. While communism was not a good idea in the long run because it executed properly. Lenin was also a fantastic speaker, he could sway his audiences and gain supporters very quickly when giving a speech. The economy rose when he had dictatorship over the country. He is responsible for the modernisation of Russia and for riding Russia of a leader who really wasn’t doing anything for its people anymore.
On the other hand, Lenin could also have been proved to be a horrible person and leader. His only goal was to kill those opposing him. He also killed many innocent Russians and was fully responsible for this. Lenin was a good leader but a bad person. Lenin was good at making decisions and trying to “fix” anything that hadn’t gone so great. He was aware about everything that was going on in Russia but the way he handled anything that he didn’t like was brutal. When he decided to make the Cheka to kill anyone who opposed him this is when the realisation that he wasn’t a very good person came up. He could have handled it differently. Also he was a paranoid person which made him make bad decisions and was obsessed and attacked to the power he had and he didn’t want to lose it therefore be came up with brutal ideas to keep his power. He is not morally a good person.
Lenin is yet another example, in my opinion, of someone who wanted power in order to impose their own vision on other people, rather than to positively affect their lives. His decision to pull Russia out of the war, leading to a civil war, has been debated a lot and many consider it to have been a bad one. His numerous attempts to introduce Communist policies resulted in disaster and thus he had to abolish them and introduce yet more policies only to abolish those as well because they were too capitalist. He adopted whatever policies would ensure he stayed in power and was not what the people wanted. If you asked me weather Vladimir Lenin in my opinion was a good man then I would say no. In some cases I think It’s true that he was an over paranoid man who acted like a child when he didn’t get his way (When he disassembled the general assembly for disagreeing with his views.) . You can consider him responsible for the death of thousands of innocent Russians but you can also say he is responsible for the modernisation of Russia and for ridding Russia of a leader who really wasn’t doing anything for Its people anymore.
Thanks for reading and please comment below on any further improvements or even just any more opinions.
-Dhiresh Nathwani
